that's worth fighting for
by emilyforprez
Summary: she sits there for hours, playing the same song again, but no one listens.


**A/N: **if you have a tumblr, please follow me there. my fics are usually up an hour earlier there. and it's easier for me to contact you or vice verse. (link on my profile.)

wrote this cuz it's thanksgiving bro.

* * *

Quinn muses that she probably has plenty to be thankful for.

She has a large house, a doting maid, an extravagant room with everything she could possibly need. She has a mother that loves her, even if she goes about it the wrong way. She's popular and feared and loved all the same, and she always keeps straight marks in all her classes. Everything's so easy. And she's thankful for that.

But she wonders what it'd be like to have — well, it doesn't even have to really _be_ a family. She has one, even if it's broken and scattered.

It's Thanksgiving. She sits quietly in the too-large house, in front of the plasma screen TV, coming to the realization that she's completely and utterly alone on one of the biggest familial holidays of the year. Ms. Fabray is away on a cruise, leaving behind her daughter so she doesn't miss school.

And she's alone, on Thanksgiving. She knew she would be but she had never expected it to be so empty.

Sam's number remains dialed on her phone as she turns it over and over in her lap, contemplating barging in on his family dinner and watching him trip over himself trying to excuse her actions as, "Quinn is hungry, Quinn hasn't _eaten_, she just needs _food_…"

But she doesn't call him. Instead, her fingers wander idly over the keys until she can hear the faint ringing in her ears. She waits, holding in a subconscious breath, until his voice picks up on the other end. "Yo?"

"Puck?" All at once, relief and surprise and contentment washes over her, flooding all through her. "It's — just — hi. Happy Thanksgiving."

There's a brief silence, and she half-expects him to call her out, but he doesn't. She can hear the smirk in his voice. "And happy Thanksgiving to you, too. Is this an offer, or —"

"It's not an offer for anything," she snaps. "But I'm alone on Thanksgiving and — I want you to pick me up, okay?"

Puck's voice is soft and resigned, with a hint of something else, something sad and bitter. "Whatever you want, princess."

She can hear the anger he doesn't say out loud, the tiredness he doesn't voice, and she wonders how long it took for her to realize that she broke him.

…

Pizza is Puck's idea of a good Thanksgiving dinner, and while Quinn would beg to differ, she doesn't feel like she deserves to be able to call the shots. The ride is mostly silent. She doesn't know him anymore.

Lizzie waits for them at the doorway, jumping up and down when she sees the box of pizza and then squealing with delight when Quinn appears behind Puck. "Quinn!" The smaller girl runs up to her and embraces her waist, as far as she can reach, and Quinn pats her head gently.

"Hey, Lizzie-boo." She leans down to hug the little girl tightly. "How've you been?"

"Good!" Lizzie chirps, yapping away as Puck pushes her inside with a smack against the back of her head. "_Ouch_. Mommy says you can't hit me!"

"Mommy isn't here," Puck retorts dryly. "Get inside. We're gonna eat."

Seeming to forget all about Puck hitting her, Lizzie runs ahead and leaps past the door's threshold, bouncing on her toes as she waits for them to get inside. The house smells a little musky and dank, but it resonates with a homey warmth that spreads through Quinn's body from her fingertips.

The table is already made for four. For a brief moment, Quinn wonders who the fourth person is, until Puck calls out, "Nana, I brought dinner." He glances at Quinn. "And… a girl."

Quinn's mouth drops open, offended to be referred to as just "a girl," but Puck smirks at her in a way that isn't unfriendly. She realizes it's a step, even if it's small, to becoming almost-friends again. She doesn't dare disturb the moment.

"I told you not to bring girls home anymore," comes an old, cracking voice from the bedroom.

"Yeah, but I'm not sleeping with this one."

Color flushes Quinn's cheeks and Lizzie bursts, "_Ewww_!"

It feels a little like a home, even if it isn't hers. She misses living here, sometimes, even if she doesn't always miss Puck. The warmth of the home, Lizzie, the feeling of a _lived _house, and not one that looks like it came out of a brochure.

Dinner goes well. It's just pizza, and it's just the four of them, and neither of them have a lot to be thankful for, so they instead are thankful to be with someone on Thanksgiving. To not be alone.

…

On the way home, Puck stops at 7-11 for a Coke, and he pulls off the road to a discrete corner of the town to sit with her in the backseat. A bag of gummy worms sits in between them, and a shared Big Gulp rests on the bridge of the floor. Quiet music drifts from the stereo, muffled by the cicadas and crickets.

For the majority of the time they are fully silent, until finally Puck says, "Why do you always do that?"

Quinn swallows down a gummy worm. "Do what?" she asks while reaching for more.

"With the gummy worms. You always bite off one end, then the other end, before you eat them." He shrugs a little. "It's weird. Almost compulsive."

Quinn hadn't known she was doing it, and when she's chewing off one end of the worm, she realizes he's right. "I… I don't know." She frowns, popping the rest of the worm in her mouth. "It's always something I've done."

Puck falls silent again, watching her with the same kind of intensity that he watches a football game. She wonders if he's waiting for her to do something interesting, when all she's doing is thoroughly enjoying candy for the first time since last year.

As the silence stretches on, the music continues to play, and Quinn recognizes the song from one of the bands her sister used to listen to. "Oh, turn this up! I like this song."

Puck props a brow at her but obliges, and soon the lyrics are resonating all around the car, quiet and slow and sad.

_— She makes beautiful noise but sticks to her frown.  
There's nothing around here that's worth fighting for.  
She drinks 'till she's quiet, and falls to the floor._

"She's eager for love, but lacking of worth," Quinn murmurs along, closing her eyes. She wishes this is all that existed. Crisp night air, a bag of candy, and sweet, soft music in her ears.

_She sits there for hours, playing the same song again.  
And no one listens._

"La, di-da, di-da, di-da, di-da." Again and again she hums the words.

By the time the music picks up, the tempo quickening and the words repeating once more, she's pressed flush against Puck's chest, his hands dragging along her arms, his tongue skidding across her neck.

_La, di-da, di-da, di-da, di-da._

She realizes that she has little to be thankful for.

She lacks a real home and a real family, and all of the material items around her threaten to crumble into dust at any moment.

But she's thankful she has this. She has freedom, even if for a moment.

His mouth dips below her breast and he trails soft kisses down her stomach. She thinks it's a full circle, history repeating itself.

Sam and Finn. Finn and Sam. And Puck. Then there's Puck.

It's like the clock rewound itself, all the way back, to the time she used wine-coolers as an excuse to feel free.

_La, di-da, di-da, di-da, di-da._


End file.
